Company laptop losses and thefts prevalent in UK

Two thirds of UK employees admitted that they have lost or had had their work laptop stolen during their careers, according to new research out today.

The SafeBoot study, which surveyed European workers, shows that a quarter of respondents in Belgium had experienced a similar incident, followed by a fifth in Holland and nine per cent in Germany.

The figures revealed that more than half of all respondents said their companies had installed security products on their laptops. The UK fared even better, with two thirds of workers installing security software on to their company machines. However, 45 per cent of British respondents said that it was either too complicated to use or they had not received any training on how to work it.

“We expected to find a few pockets of bad security practices, but these findings make disturbing reading,” said Tom de Jongh, product manager at SafeBoot, in a statement. “Businesses must be more proactive in securing sensitive data, and make sure that workers know exactly what to do to protect corporate assets.”

The survey questioned 1,279 people across the UK, Germany, Holland and Belgium.

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